NNPN Rolling World Premieres At Synchronicity Theatre And Mixed Blood Theatre

National New Play Network, the country's alliance of nonprofit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, celebrates the opening of NNPN Rolling World Premiere (RWP) production of Ripe Frenzy by Jennifer Barclay and the continued run of Mermaid Hour: ReMixed by David Valdes Greenwood (Book & Lyrics) and Eric Mayson (Music).

Ripe Frenzy by Jennifer Barclay opens the second leg of its NNPN Rolling World Premiere at Synchronicity Theatre (Atlanta) on April 13 and runs through May 6, 2018. Ripe Frenzy will continue its Roll at Greenway Court Theatre (Los Angeles) May 17-June 17 and began its RWP at New Repertory Theatre (Watertown, MA) February 24-March 11. Ripe Frenzy received the 2016-17 NNPN Smith Prize for Political Theatre and is NNPN's 77th Rolling World Premiere.

Adapted into a chamber musical for this production of the Roll, Mermaid Hour: ReMixed by David Valdes Greenwood (Book & Lyrics) and Eric Mayson (Music) runs at Mixed Blood Theatre (Minneapolis) through April 29. It will continue its Roll at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte (May 2-19). Previous RWP productions took place at Milagro (Portland) March 22-April 14 and Borderlands Theater (Tucson) March 15-April 1. The Mermaid Hour was presented at the 2016 National Showcase of New Plays and is NNPN's 75th Rolling World Premiere.

In an NNPN Rolling World Premiere, the Network provides production support to the playwright and the partnering theaters, including assistance with the creation and the contracting of the premiere agreement, collaborative interactions between the theaters, and travel and housing funds for the playwright to further develop the play in each city.

"There are some plays that ask you to accept its conceit, to follow its fancies. This one demands that you shine a light on what our society obscures. Brave and political is how I would describe the performance. This is truly one that reflects not only the best of theater but also the pain in our own hearts, the kind that lingers long after
one bad day." - Johnson Huynh, The Tech

ABOUT RIPE FRENZY
Ripe Frenzy is set in a small town in upstate New York, where the high school is famous for having done the most productions of Our Town of any school, ever. On Opening Night of the school's 40th production, a student opens fire with an AR-15. Time is slippery as the play submerges us in the before, during and after of the shooting, using Our Town as a framework to examine what has become our new American norm. Told from the perspective of the mothers of the town, the play questions our own culpability in the perpetuation of mass shootings in our country.

ABOUT JENNIFER BARCLAY
Jennifer Barclay is a Chicago-bred actor-turned-playwright, recently relocated to DC where she is a member of Arena Stage's 2017-18 Playwrights' Arena. Her play Ripe Frenzy won the National New Play Network 2016-17 Smith Prize for Political Theatre and the 2018 Dramatists Guild Fund Writers Alliance Grant. Ripe Frenzy was developed at Woolly Mammoth, the 2017 Ojai Playwrights Conference, and NNPN/PlayPenn. Jennifer's plays have been produced and developed by Steppenwolf, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, RedCat, The Kennedy Center, Baltimore Center Stage, The International Theatre of Vienna, and The Edinburgh Fringe. Awards include the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award, Kennedy Center National Science Playwriting Award, and the Pinter Review Gold Medal. Jennifer has been a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Hawthornden International Writers Retreat in Scotland. She has been a Playwright in Residence at South Coast Rep and Baltimore Center Stage. Jennifer has a degree in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Playwriting at UC San Diego, where she studied with Naomi Iizuka. She is a proud NNPN Affiliated Artist and an Assistant Professor of Playwriting and Performance at the University of Maryland. Currently, she is developing Danny (upcoming workshop at Boulder Ensemble Theatre), Yellowstone: the ballad of the red-state white man (upcoming readings at Moxie Theatre in San Diego and American Blues Theatre in Chicago) and Housebound (workshopped at Woolly Mammoth, directed by Shana Cooper). BarclayStudios.com

ABOUT SYNCHRONICITY THEATRE
Synchronicity Theatre produces smart, gutsy and bold theatre to spark community connections and uplift the voices of women and girls. Synchronicity Theatre was founded in 1997 by four women with a desire to work collaboratively and bring challenging, meaningful theatre to Atlanta audiences. In 2000, after having produced one show per year for three years, we presented our first full season. We now reach nearly 8,000 patrons through our season of plays for adults (Bold Voices) and families (Family Series); community outreach; and educational programming, including our Playmaking for Kids (PFK) summer camps and after-school programs and our award-winning Playmaking for Girls (PFG) program. Our new home is located in the heart of midtown in the Peachtree Pointe building, in our brand-new intimate theatre. With 140 seats, our audiences can get up close and personal, and are never more than a few feet away from the artists. There's not a bad seat in the house! We believe in the power of the bond between artist and audience, and our intimate stage brings us together to experience stories, music, and drama as a community. synchrotheatre.com.